Kanter rejects Raptors

Turkish big man Enes Kanter is one of the more intriguing prospects in this year's draft. He's skilled, tall, and filled with enough question marks to entice some general managers to take a risk. He also hasn't played organized basketball in more than a year after being declared academically ineligible to play for Kentucky due to a prior relationship with a Turkish club team. And while that incident says more about NCAA rules than Kanter's character, there's some question as to how long it will take him to get acclimated to the NBA.

To his credit, though, he seems to have a plan of attack for interviewing with his prospective employers: only visit with the ones he wants to play for. This should go great!

Interesting, @ESPNAndyKatz said Enes Kanter "stood up" Toronto, Milwaukee, Utah for interviews. Guess he won't interview with them at all.

Word is that Kanter is taken with the Wizards, the team led by his (kind of sort of) Kentucky friend John Wall(notes). Washington, D.C., is a much larger market than any of the cities he skipped out on Friday, but they also may be several years away from success.

Kanter's Gambit here is pretty clear: He wants to force these teams to pass on him so that he can end up with a city and franchise he likes. It's a strategy Ricky Rubio(notes) employed in 2008 with poor results -- the Minnesota Timberwolves picked him and he has spent the last two years in Spain. Kanter can do much the same and possibly even avoid Rubio's state of limbo. Because he's not currently tied to any team, Kanter can choose to spend another year away from professional basketball and reenter the draft next season.

The problem there is that, given that he's already sat out a year and spent his last season of amateur ball facing below-average competition, it's likely that one more year on the sidelines would make Kanter a far less intriguing prospect. Teams like potential, but they also like proven results, and Kanter's draft profile in 2012 would be based on one stellar performance in the Nike Hoop Summit two years prior with nothing substantive to follow. Like all draft prospects, Kanter already requires a leap of faith. In 2012, it'd be more like an extreme base jump into a chasm of doubt. Kanter has some amount of leverage, but he might not be in quite as solid a situation as his behavior indicates.

Holy crap. It's amazing how fans can overreact. First of all, it's most likely the agent that orchestrated this. Not Kanter. And as has been discussed, it probably has to do with wanting him to be drafted by a team where he will be able to have a good chance to start. The agent obviously feels that Toronto already has Bargnani, so don't need a center. Little do they apparently know that center is the team's biggest need and Bargnani is probably gone this summer.

Also, Kanter has planned a later interview with Utah, so this article is not telling the whole story. Shocking, isn't it.

But let's all jump to conclusions based on nothing but rumour and hearsay. That's the norm, isn't it?

I have found other articles that say he wants to play for Utah (posted on other thread). So who the hell knows what this 19 yr old wants. I think he will be very happy to play with Toronto, if he happens to fall all the way to 5th.

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

I have found other articles that say he wants to play for Utah (posted on other thread). So who the hell knows what this 19 yr old wants. I think he will be very happy to play with Toronto, if he happens to fall all the way to 5th.

Not to mention, all these "articles" are hardly credible. The instant gratification tweets are bad enough, but then you have people writing about what they've heard elsewhere and before you know it, some tiny little morsel becomes fact. I can't wait for draft day to come, so we can stop speculating and just welcome Kanter, Flynn, Rubio and Bryant to Toronto.

I have found other articles that say he wants to play for Utah (posted on other thread). So who the hell knows what this 19 yr old wants. I think he will be very happy to play with Toronto, if he happens to fall all the way to 5th.

My question is, why would he enjoy playing for Minnesota. What's wrong with the boy? Who the hell enjoys playing for Minnesota?

Not to mention, all these "articles" are hardly credible. The instant gratification tweets are bad enough, but then you have people writing about what they've heard elsewhere and before you know it, some tiny little morsel becomes fact. I can't wait for draft day to come, so we can stop speculating and just welcome Kanter, Flynn, Rubio and Bryant to Toronto.

And to put credibility in the hands of a writer who says that DC is a much larger
Market than all the others listed...obviously does not check his facts since Toronto is the fourth largest market, and it 'ain't behind DC'.

I was just thinking (hide your women and goats), when these players declare for the draft, there should be some sort of contract that gets signed that STATES clearly that the player will provide reasonable access and accept solicitations from teams that can draft him. The entrance into the NBA draft, should require this very basic agreement.

Players this green should not be destroying the rules the league has set up. I am getting sick of the drama of some players wanting to be drafted here or not there. If a player does anything noncompetitive in a draft, he should be fined by being withdrawn from the current draft and relegated to the next. Simple as that.

I think these kinds of antics hurt the league and its credibility, and the hammer should come down hard on players that act bigger than the league itself and try to skirt regulations set up for competition. The order of the picks should decide player destination, not player preference.

I was just thinking (hide your women and goats), when these players declare for the draft, there should be some sort of contract that gets signed that STATES clearly that the player will provide reasonable access and accept solicitations from teams that can draft him. The entrance into the NBA draft, should require this very basic agreement.

Do the NFL and NHL have such a contract? I distinctly remember the Bo Jackson and Eric Lindros pre-draft circuses and in Lindros' case, the post-draft circus as well.

It is a sobering thought that both Jackson and Lindros were much, much better prospects than Kanter but they never achieved greatness due to injuries.

Time will tell if the Kanter report is little more than posturing by someone who ranks 8th on some of the mock drafts.

And to put credibility in the hands of a writer who says that DC is a much larger
Market than all the others listed...obviously does not check his facts since Toronto is the fourth largest market, and it 'ain't behind DC'.

I chuckled reading that as well. The market here stretches throughout all of Canada anyways, their's stretches to... Baltimore?

Do the NFL and NHL have such a contract? I distinctly remember the Bo Jackson and Eric Lindros pre-draft circuses and in Lindros' case, the post-draft circus as well.

It is a sobering thought that both Jackson and Lindros were much, much better prospects than Kanter but they never achieved greatness due to injuries.

Time will tell if the Kanter report is little more than posturing by someone who ranks 8th on some of the mock drafts.

I don't really care about the NFL or NHL, I care about the NBA, and I think the NBA should implement that. Very simple, you enter the draft, you make yourself available. Straight to the point. If we catch you tampering, you are out of the draft, no ifs or buts.

Besides I wouldn't be using the other leagues as yard sticks, they have their own issues.

Until I hear it out of Kanter's mouth, I'm not going to believe it. He needs to talk to Hedo Turkoglu and get a taste of the great Turkish community we have here in Toronto. And by great I mean those two guys running that hole-in-a-wall joint on Dundas West.

The problem there is that, given that he's already sat out a year and spent his last season of amateur ball facing below-average competition, it's likely that one more year on the sidelines would make Kanter a far less intriguing prospect. Teams like potential, but they also like proven results, and Kanter's draft profile in 2012 would be based on one stellar performance in the Nike Hoop Summit two years prior with nothing substantive to follow

as I have said numerous times on this board - his agent has been hiding him since that one game at the nike summit. He drank 9 rebulls and preformed better than expected. This guy is totally over rated. Drafting him would be a huge mistake. He has done nothing and I mean nothing to show he would even dominate the NCAA (which he also did not show up to play in)

And to put credibility in the hands of a writer who says that DC is a much larger
Market than all the others listed...obviously does not check his facts since Toronto is the fourth largest market, and it 'ain't behind DC'.

ummm whats the basketball watching/participating size in Toronto vs Washington? Cause I hardly think a puckhead that refuses to watch basketball or is willing to even spend a dime and go near the ACC when the leafs aren't there are exactly in a teams/players/agents target market.

Maybe someone else should get their "facts" straight before they start spewing off numbers CTV or the TSN would use as opposed to the NBA, a team, an agent or Nike when they offer endorsement deals.

ummm whats the basketball watching/participating size in Toronto vs Washington? Cause I hardly think a puckhead that refuses to watch basketball or is willing to even spend a dime and go near the ACC when the leafs aren't there are exactly in a teams/players/agents target market.

Maybe someone else should get their "facts" straight before they start spewing off numbers CTV or the TSN would use as opposed to the NBA, a team, an agent or Nike when they offer endorsement deals.

http://espn.go.com/nba/attendance
These are the facts. Every year Toronto is in the playoffs we have way more sales than Washington. I guess you can say that we're fair-weather fans, but we are a significantly larger market.

http://espn.go.com/nba/attendance
These are the facts. Every year Toronto is in the playoffs we have way more sales than Washington. I guess you can say that we're fair-weather fans, but we are a significantly larger market.

ok so let me get this straight... its attendance record that is the only useful demographic to use? (which by the Wiz were ahead of the Raps this season in average attendance and in a "smaller market" which makes for a much more dense market. They have been ahead of Toronto just as often as they have been behind Toronto for atleast 6 years.)

When people talk markets you need to understand... target market (and this is very diverse depending on who happens to be selling what), market density, market affordability.

Toronto has a perfectly acceptable market size and alot of fans who can afford the product. Thats why there will always be a team here... enough people and enough people who can pay a fair to high amount of money. However, the market is limited in its target market AND is limited in its geography. A team like washington is a smaller raw market, but a larger target market. It does have a less wealthy market. However, their geography does not meet the same limitations Toronto does.... that is they are much more likely to get national viewership than Toronto will be. Therefore companies such as nike/gatorade etc are much more willing to give endorsement money to those players and players are much more likely to be attracted to them because they can get their face out there.

But sure, every year that Toronto is in the playoffs they a higher attendance is what really shows a "market".